Causley's public parole hearing cancelled

Thursday 06 October 2022

A man who tried to fake his own drowning off the coast of Guernsey, before being jailed for killing his wife, has had his controversial parole hearing cancelled amid fears over his safety.

Russel Causley, now 79, killed his wife almost 40 years ago.

Carole Packman is believed to have died in 1985. She disappeared from the family home in Bournemouth and her body has never been discovered.

Pictured: The Bournemouth Echo and other regional. and national media, have reported on developments with the Causley case. 

In 1993, Causley was charged with fraud after faking his own death as part of an insurance scam. He was jailed in 1995 for that, and Dorset Police reopened the investigation into Ms Packman's disappearance.

Causley was subsequently charged with her murder and was convicted and jailed for life, with a minimum term of 16 years, in 1996.

He appealed the conviction but was found guilty at a retrial in 2004.

Causley first became eligible for parole in 2012, and it was refused in 2014.

He was granted parole in 2020, but then was returned to prison in 2021 after breaching the terms of his licence.

Since then, changes to the UK's parole system mean that public hearings can be heard and Causley was due to be the first person to have his case heard in this way.

Pictured: The Bournemouth Echo has been reporting on the recent news regarding Causley.

He had intended to move in with a former prisoner with whom he is friendly, who has been named in the national media as Graham Greensmith. As his address is now known publicly, it was decided that Causley's safety was at risk and so his public parole hearing was cancelled.

As Ms Packman's body has never been found, and Causley has never offered up any information that he knows about her likely death, her family continue to campaign against his release.

Ms Packman's daughter, Samatha Gillingham, and her grandson, Neil Gillingham, have both said they do not want him released from prison.

Describing their father and grandfather as "callous" and "evil" in national media interviews, the pair say they want him to remain behind bars while he refuses to reveal where their mother, and grandmother's, body is.